


A matter of (mis)interpretation

by Yuu_chi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8297287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: Lance and Hunk have been together for longer than they've been Paladins. It's pretty common knowledge. Or you know, they thought it was.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вопрос (не)верного толкования](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13260321) by [timmy_failure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmy_failure/pseuds/timmy_failure)



> this is more or less entirely based off of [this](http://glenflower.tumblr.com/post/151838870811/true-fact-hunk-and-lance-have-been-dating-since) one post I made last night and then written in a matter of a day

After a long week of nothing but Paladin duties and way too much space travel, Coran walks in on the pair of them curled together on the sofa, Lance’s head on Hunk’s thigh and Hunk’s fingers gently running through Lance’s hair. It’s disgustingly domestic and Lance loves it.

“Good evening gentlemen,” Coran says, as if time has any kind of meaning in space. “I believe Shiro is looking for the lot of you. He wants to get some training in during downtime.”

Lance groans and rolls over, hiding his face in Hunk’s stomach. Hunk snorts and pats his back sympathetically.

“We’ll be down in a minute Coran,” Hunk says.

“Excellent! Do make sure Lance remembers his bayard this time,” he says and turns and leaves the room without batting an eye.

.

Two days later the ship’s emergency alarm blasts to life at some ungodly hour while the lot of them are asleep. Lance and Hunk trip over each other trying to get out of bed and Lance cops an elbow to his gut that leaves him pained and breathless.

By the time they stumble out into the main room the others are already gathered there. Pidge looks like they haven’t gotten more than half an hour sleep. Keith has his bayard activated and looks like he’s willing to use it on the next person who approaches. Everybody looks exhausted and confused.

Except, of course, for Shiro and Allura.

“You’re late,” Allura says, and then frowns. “Is that a blanket around your shoulders, Lance?”

Lance yawns. “If we’re late it’s only because Hunk winded me getting out of bed. I’m taking the blanket. Hunk doesn’t deserve it anymore.”

“You’re the one who sleeps with headphones on,” Hunk groans, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that it is for me? I nearly choked myself on the cord last night.”

“Thirty-three seconds,” Shiro says, ignoring all of them and smiling down at his stopwatch. “That’s half of what it took you all last month. Good job, team. You’ll have emergency response down to nothing in no time at all.”

Lance wants to be angry at being dragged out of bed at ass o’clock for an emergency drill, but it’s always been hard to get angry at Shiro when he looks at them all proud and earnest like that. He doesn't want to kill his buzz. Even if his ribs are aching something fierce. “Can we go back to bed now?”

“We’ll even let you sleep in to make up for it,” Allura promises. “Although next time you better leave your blanket behind, Lance.”

“Technically it’s Hunk’s,” Lance says just to be a shit. “I’ll see all of you nerds in the morning; Hunk, carry me back. It’s your fault I’m in pain.”

Hunk rolls his eyes but allows Lance to fling himself at his back and be half-dragged back to the room. The others barely even notice.

.

They’re shopping in a small marketplace when Hunk makes a thoughtful sound under his breath.

“What?” Lance asks, peering over his shoulder.

“What do you think of these?” Hunk asks, holding up a pair of thin bracelets threaded through with all manner of crystals and minerals Lance knows don't naturally occur on earth.

Lance raises a brow. “That they’re bracelets?”

Hunk rolls his eyes. “Would you wear one? If I got them for us?” He holds one to Lance’s wrist contemplatively. “We’ve been so busy I didn’t get to give you a gift before we - well, you know. Became sole defenders of the galaxy and all that.”

“Matching bracelets? That’s pretty gay, my dude.”

Hunk levels him with a look. “ _You’re_ pretty gay, dude.”

“I am a pretty gay, I do agree.”

“Get a room you two,” Keith huffs as he breezes by, keen on a rack of sharp-looking knives. Pidge, shopping through some discount tech things beside them, snorts.

“No, but for real,” Hunk says. “I’d get rings or something more traditional, but they’d get sort of in the way. We don’t have to get it if you don’t -.”

“No, shut the fuck up, of course I want it,” Lance says, and slips one on his hand. It settles over the fine bones in his wrist. “You’re a giant, sentimental dork.”

“Says the guy who once made me a mix tape on a USB,” Hunk says dryly, and pays for the bracelets.

.

“Your friend has a very interesting style of musical expression,” says an alien on some out of the way planet in the middle of a nowhere star system, watching as Lance dances his way across the ballroom with moves that fell out of fashion ten years ago.

“That’s Lance,” Pidge says with a dead serious face. “Just… so much style and class.”

Keith laughs so hard he chokes on his drink and Pidge pounds him on the back with probably a little too much force.

Across the room Lance is dancing with a child easily half his height and the pair of them look like they’re having the time of their lives. Hunk can feel himself grinning stupidly because he gets dumb about Lance sometimes.

Their alien host watches him silently for a second and then looks back out at the dance floor. “Your eternal partner seems like he is a good man,” they say, and Hunk may not speak the language of this planet very well, but he can guess what _eternal partner_ means and he likes the sound of it a lot.

“The best,” Hunk says, and gets to his feet to go fight off a ten year old girl for his boyfriend’s affections.

.

They get stranded in the middle of an ice desert after a mission and Lance doesn't even hesitate before crawling into Hunk’s lap.

“You guys can make the fire,” he says to Keith and Pidge as he heaves Hunk’s arms around him. “I’m just going to stay right here.”

.

On an ambassadorial trip to communicate with the indigenous species of a planet they’re borrowing, Allura leaves Lance in charge. He treats the position very seriously, because this particular subset of aliens are very big on tradition, and introduces each of the Paladins with the same respect and honour.

“But which one do you claim by your side?” Their host asks.

“Hunk,” Lance says without so much as blinking.

.

“I miss Radioshack,” Pidge says, halfway through a game of _never-have-I-ever_ that has somehow morphed into _never-have-I-ever-realized-how-much-I-would-miss-this-thing-in-the-cold-dark-of-space_.

“Potatoes,” Keith says.

“Eyeliner,” Shiro admits.

“Running water,” Lance moans.

“Lance’s mother,” Hunks says. “And you know what, just his family as a whole.”

.

There’s a planet with lush green grass and waterfalls around every corner, and the people who live their refuse to let the Paladins leave until they give ‘ _a display of trust representing an unbreakable bond’._

“We don’t have physical demonstrations for that where we come from,” Shiro says, trying to explain a way off the planet like the good leader he is, but going nowhere fast. “On Earth, a declaration of friendship is all it takes. Unless - unless you’re saying we should swear fealty to each other?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lance huffs, and drags Hunk down by the collar of his shirt to kiss him passionately in front of everybody.

.

“Love ya man,” Lance says absently as Hunk passes him a cup of coffee as the lot of them sprawl out over the dining room table.

Hunk pats him on the shoulder as he passes by. “Love you too, buddy.”

.

“So,” Lance says one days as the Paladins are curled up in the rec room watching some kind of weird space movie play out that none of the humans can follow but Allura and Coran find absolutely hilarious, “Hunk and I were thinking that the next time we have to go to one of those weirdly traditional planets it might just be easier to tell them we’re married.”

“You don’t have to pretend to be married for the sake of the mission,” Shiro laughs. “Even you two don’t have to go _that_ far.”

Lance shrugs nonchalantly. “We don’t particularly mind, it’s not like it’s skin off our backs. It’s a pretty small lie, all things considered.”

“I mean, we’d just _get_ married, but it seems a shitty thing to do to our families,” Hunk adds.

“Yeah, we’re probably not gonna get actually hitched until Zarkon bites the dust and we can go home for it,” Lance says. He adds, to be respectable and all that, “Not that there’s any rush in that case.”

The whole room stares at them. Something blows up on the screen and it’s incredibly loud in the sudden silence.

“What?” Lance asks.

“Hold on,” Allura says, leaning forward and squinting at the two of them. “Can you repeat that, please?”

Lance shares an unnerved look with Hunk. Lance looks back out at the room. Everybody’s attention is suddenly perfectly riveted on them, except for Pidge who hadn’t even been paying attention when the movie was running and is totally consumed in a laptop.

“I don’t know what you want me to repeat? Hunk and I aren’t keen on getting married without our families there, I didn’t know that was going to be surprising.”

“No,” Keith says. “The bit where you’re going to get married _for real_.”

“Dude, not for a while,” Lance scoffs. “We’re only eighteen. I was just talking about the future, don’t rush me.”

“Lance,” Hunk says in his ear. “Uh, buddy.”

It clicks. Lance’s mouth drops open. He can’t think of a single thing to say. “Are you - are you _fucking with me?_ ”

Allura looks so terribly upset that Lance is almost sorry on reflex alone. “When did this happen? For how long has this been happening? _And why didn’t you tell us?_ ”

Coran sniffs and his eyes look suspiciously watery. “I’d understand if you didn’t trust us enough to tell us lads, we’ve only known each other for a few months, but this isn’t how you should share this kind of happy news.”

“I’m sorry if we’ve done anything that makes you feel like you couldn’t tell us,” Shiro adds very earnestly. “But we’re all very happy for you.”

Lance looks about the room and then back up into Hunk’s face.

“Guys,” he says. “Guys, _we thought you knew_.”

“How would we know?” Keith demands, throwing his hands into the air like Lance is being unreasonable, and mostly they get along these days, but Lance kind of wants to punch him this time. “You never _said_ anything!”

“Lance sleeps in my room every night!” Hunk shouts, they’re all shouting now, and Lance doesn’t know how this got so far out of hand. “Coran, you’ve walked in on us cuddling like six times now!” He thrusts the hand of Lance’s his holding into the air. “I bought him matching bracelets!” He yells, and the bracelets clatter harmlessly against one another.

“We’ve hardly been subtle!” Lance says.

“ _I_ _just thought you were very good friends,”_ Allura shrieks.

“You’ve seen me kiss Hunk before! When the fuck have I ever planted one on Shiro or Pidge or Keith?”

“I thought it was to get us off the planet,” Shiro protests, a little red at the tips of his ears.

“I tell Lance I love him at least last a day!”

“To be fair,” Pidge chips in, still not looking up, “last week you told Coran you loved him because he gave you an extra serving of food goo. You can hardly blame them.”

Allura rounds on them. “You _knew_ about this?”

Pidge finally glances up and gives her a dry look. “Yes, because I’m not _blind_.” They pause for a second and then admit, “also because they’ve been together since they were fifteen and I had to be there for some of the honeymoon period.”

“You’ve been together for _three years?_ ” Keith echoes.

“It was our three year anniversary the day after we left Earth,” Hunk says. “It’s why I bought Lance the bracelet, as a late anniversary gift. Keith, you were right there when Lance and I talked about it in the market.”

Keith stares at him like Hunk is speaking Altean.

Lance throws his hands in the air and gets to his feet, dragging Hunk up behind him. “You know what, I’m finished here. Hunk and I are going to go back to his room and complain about the lot of you and we’re going to be _especially_ mean about it.”

“And I won’t even apologize when I tell Lance that I think you guys have been very rude tonight,” Hunk adds, and Lance pats him encouragingly on the face because he’s trying hard to convince Hunk that he doesn’t have to be nice to his friends all the time to still be loved.

“You know where to find us when you’re ready to be reasonable,” Lance sniffs, and the pair of them leave the room with the air of two people who know they have the high ground.

“Well,” Shiro says diplomatically into the quiet. “In hindsight, this feels like a pretty obvious thing to miss. Coran, _please stop crying_.”

.

Things after that are - well, in a word, _hilarious_.

The others seem to go out of their way to make it up to them. Keith makes sure to leave them seats next to each other at breakfast and Shiro takes to introducing them to everybody as a couple.

_This is Lance and his boyfriend Hunk._

_Hunk and Lance, our yellow and blue paladin respectively. They’re the legs of Voltron and support the team the same way they support each other unconditionally in their relationship._

_This is Hunk and Lance, they will be in charge of your evacuation. They are a couple. We love them dearly - yes, sorry, I realize this is a time-sensitive issue, I’m nearly done. They are wonderful people and -_

Allura and Coran are the worst offenders though. Where the others have taken to offering some form of truce masquerading as an over abundance of affection, Allura and Coran have taken to aggressively planning their wedding for them, right down to the proposals.

“Do you think we should tell them that you proposed to me six months ago?” Lance asks absently as they lay in bed one evening, flicking through some outdated magazine from a planet in a language he can’t even read.

“Hmm,” Hunk says, not looking up from the machine he’s tinkering with and Lance is going to be furious if he gets grease on the sheets again. “Maybe leave it for now. I’m curious to see if Allura can really organize a meteor shower to spell out our names by next week.”

Lance looks up, scandalized. “She offered you a meteor shower? All I got was a picnic in the most beautiful garden in six galaxies.”

“You like gardens,” Hunk says simply.

“Yes, but I like the idea of Allura going out of her way to organize something like that only to discover you proposed to me with a loose socket screw you happened to have in your pocket the day I turned eighteen a lot more.”

“I’ll get you a real ring when we get married,” Hunk sighs.

“No, fuck you, I want the socket screw.”

.

They spend much of a month dodging Coran and Allura’s attempt to marry them off. Zarkon does not seem to be in danger of falling anytime soon and home is still much too far away for either of their comfort, but time does not freeze in space and they continue on as they always have; together, and now with a team that is maybe a little more aware of it.

When they’d imagined adopting a family years down the line, this hadn't been exactly as they pictured it, but it’s what the have and honestly?

They pretty much love it.

And yeah, maybe the whole thing was a little bit more hilarious in hindsight. Lance had been a little disappointed that he’d barely been involved in the greatest plot twist of his life, but there’s still the proposal prank to go, and for now Lance can be content with that.

(A week later Allura does indeed spell out their names in a beautiful meteor shower and it’s amazing and corny and Lance leans in close to whisper to Hunk _I always told you we were written in the stars_ and they laugh themselves completely to tears and Allura looks absolutely offended and burning space debris continues to rain down just outside the ship and Lance, in all of his life, has never been this content.)

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A matter of (mis)interpretation by Yuu_chi [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372306) by [illutu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illutu/pseuds/illutu), [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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